Beethoven's daughter?

[Peter]

"Even had the affair finished, it couldn't have been so bitter that they had nothing to do with each other after so many years of intimate association." (I couldn't properly edit these remarks).


Beethoven was a human being and I think we would be naive to believe that acrimony and bitterness over a failed relationship would be the exclusive prerogative of the non-musical!! I'm sure it could be just as potent and vicious for Beethoven as for the rest of us.

Fanny Giannatassio (who herself was infatuated with Beethoven and deeply disappointed when she found out about Beethoven's feelings for another women) made it clear that Beethoven was still in love with this women 5 years on - that doesn't sound like bitterness towards the women concerned. Beethoven was resigned to the fact that it could not be.

I think this woman may well be Therese Malfatti. She fits the time scale of around 5 years, it was 6 but Beethoven's memory could be playing tricks here. It is possible Beethoven was considering marriage as Breuning remarks around 1810 that his marriage plans had come to nothing probably because of family objections which would have proved THE obstacle to the whole affair (indeed Therese's niece later claimed this is exactly what happened). Is it not possible that the K in the letter was not karlsbad as is assumed, but Krems where Therese's family had an estate nearby? I also think the year 1816 is highly significant as Beethoven refers to his unhappy love twice in a way that reveals he has given up hope - that was the year Therese married.

[Bonn1827]

"Even had the affair finished, it couldn't have been so bitter that they had nothing to do with each other after so many years of intimate association." (I couldn't properly edit these remarks).


Beethoven was a human being and I think we would be naive to believe that acrimony and bitterness over a failed relationship would be the exclusive prerogative of the non-musical!! I'm sure it could be just as potent and vicious for Beethoven as for the rest of us.

[Peter]

Peter,
"1)Beethoven referred in a letter of 1816 to having met the love of his life five years previously in 1811 - he met Josephine in 1799" . This has now IMO convincingly been addressed by Steblin (but it requires full understanding of the German language, otherwise the very simple but effective address gets lost in translation, very literally). [Btw: are you pointing at a letter, or an overheard conversation?]

5)There is no evidence of a great reaction from Beethoven to her death in 1821.
Literally that is true.
But there isn't ANY written source covering the March 31st 1821:
-Letters: Brandenburg 1429 (to Simrock in Bonn) is dated March 14th. Bb 1430 (original has not survived, but is known to be sent to Schlesinger in Berlin) arrived at Schlesinger's May 12th 1821;
-Conversation booklets: Between no.16 (ending mid-September 1820) and no.17 (beginning June 1822) no booklets have survived
-Scores made ready for publication: none (opus 109 was sent to the publisher Autumn 1820)
-Desktop Sketchbooks: Artaria 195, the pages at the end, for the Benedictus of opus 123, cannot be dated exactly, but are likely to be sketched at the end of 1820 (though a date as late as February or March 1821 cannot be fully excluded). For the following one, Artaria 197, the existing evidence provides no solid clues as to the date of the first sketches (but it may have been as early March 1821)
-Pocket sketchbooks: DSB Grasnick 5 can only be dated "sometime" during 1821, its predecessor Bonn BH 109 used in the fall of 1820, its successor the Pocket Sketchbook of late 1821( that is how it really is called in the literature ) being used from August 1821 onwards.

Therefore, apart from the possibillity that some sketches were made during March/April 1821, no other written sources seem to have survived (assuming these once existed).

It is known however, that B was not in the best of health during the first quarter of 1821, and also that after some recovery he relapsed early April (!), not to recover "fully" until early summer.

====

for the rest:
2)It would have been impossible for Beethoven to be discussing marriage or living with her, as divorce was most unlikely to have been granted.
3)Would Beethoven knowing his daughter to be Minona have made no provision for her in his will?
4)Why is there no evidence of further correspondence or meeting between the two, especially after the Stackelberg separation? Even had the affair finished, it couldn't have been so bitter that they had nothing to do with each other after so many years of intimate association.
I am afraid there is still something to answer for.

I think the 5 year reference is actually found in a diary entry of Fanny Giannatassio of 1816 "Beethoven remained in love with a woman he met 5 years earlier". To Ries on May 8th 1816 he also wrote "Unfortunately I have no wife, I found only one, whom no doubt I shall never possess." Solomon quotes this in support of his theory about Antonie Brentano, ignoring the fact that Beethoven had actually known Antonie Brentano years before.

[Roehre]

I have to say I have always found the Antonie Brentano hypothesis unconvincing for several reasons. However there are still problems with the Josephine theory -
1)Beethoven referred in a letter of 1816 to having met the love of his life five years previously in 1811 - he met Josephine in 1799.
2)It would have been impossible for Beethoven to be discussing marriage or living with her, as divorce was most unlikely to have been granted.
3)Would Beethoven knowing his daughter to be Minona have made no provision for her in his will?
4)Why is there no evidence of further correspondence or meeting between the two, especially after the Stackelberg separation? Even had the affair finished, it couldn't have been so bitter that they had nothing to do with each other after so many years of intimate association.
5)There is no evidence of a great reaction from Beethoven to her death in 1821.

Peter,
"1)Beethoven referred in a letter of 1816 to having met the love of his life five years previously in 1811 - he met Josephine in 1799" . This has now IMO convincingly been addressed by Steblin (but it requires full understanding of the German language, otherwise the very simple but effective address gets lost in translation, very literally). [Btw: are you pointing at a letter, or an overheard conversation?]

5)There is no evidence of a great reaction from Beethoven to her death in 1821.
Literally that is true.
But there isn't ANY written source covering the March 31st 1821:
-Letters: Brandenburg 1429 (to Simrock in Bonn) is dated March 14th. Bb 1430 (original has not survived, but is known to be sent to Schlesinger in Berlin) arrived at Schlesinger's May 12th 1821;
-Conversation booklets: Between no.16 (ending mid-September 1820) and no.17 (beginning June 1822) no booklets have survived
-Scores made ready for publication: none (opus 109 was sent to the publisher Autumn 1820)
-Desktop Sketchbooks: Artaria 195, the pages at the end, for the Benedictus of opus 123, cannot be dated exactly, but are likely to be sketched at the end of 1820 (though a date as late as February or March 1821 cannot be fully excluded). For the following one, Artaria 197, the existing evidence provides no solid clues as to the date of the first sketches (but it may have been as early March 1821)
-Pocket sketchbooks: DSB Grasnick 5 can only be dated "sometime" during 1821, its predecessor Bonn BH 109 used in the fall of 1820, its successor the Pocket Sketchbook of late 1821( that is how it really is called in the literature ) being used from August 1821 onwards.

Therefore, apart from the possibillity that some sketches were made during March/April 1821, no other written sources seem to have survived (assuming these once existed).

It is known however, that B was not in the best of health during the first quarter of 1821, and also that after some recovery he relapsed early April (!), not to recover "fully" until early summer.

====

for the rest:
2)It would have been impossible for Beethoven to be discussing marriage or living with her, as divorce was most unlikely to have been granted.
3)Would Beethoven knowing his daughter to be Minona have made no provision for her in his will?
4)Why is there no evidence of further correspondence or meeting between the two, especially after the Stackelberg separation? Even had the affair finished, it couldn't have been so bitter that they had nothing to do with each other after so many years of intimate association.
I am afraid there is still something to answer for.

[Peter]

this publication is in English .

Short:
The Deym/Stackleberg archives are being ordered and made public.
Diary fragments of Josephine have resurfaced;
recollections of Josephine's eldest son ditto, both clearifying some dubious or questionable entries in Therese Brunsvik's published recollections from the 1840s.

Putting next to each other the places where B and J stayed in the beginning of July 1812 these fit brilliantly; both mention that something had happened causing the necessity to change some previously made plans.

The early July 1812 diary pages of J's are written with pencil, contrary to the fast majority of the other surviving pages - Beethoven refers to a pencil in the letter to the IB (yours...).

J was exceptionally fertile (there was an illegimitate child already e.g.). In the one night stand with B (in Prague) Minona was conceived.
She was born April 8th 1813. B knew she was. There is a cryptic remark in a letter of his dated April 8th 1813. There is a hint to her in the first conversation booklet as well.
The similarities between Beethoven's portraits and the photos made of Minona are striking (though she wasn't as musical as sometimes is said).

B started the procedures to get custodianship over Karl April 12th 1813, before it was needed (his brother was ill, but the end was far from near), again cryptically mentioning he was (a kind of) father too.

The "A" in Beethoven's diary can easily be interpreted as such as a misreading /misinterpretation for St., which in B's handwriting is nearly identical, but hardly appears in his letters. Steblin documents this beyond any doubt. The diary only has survived in the form of two copies in other people's handwriting. A misreading is easily made, and other misreadings are documented.
St then is to be interpreted as Stackelberg.

As he and Josephine after J's faux pas were cuddling up (avoiding a scandal, of which neither B, nor J nor Stackelberg would have escaped unscathed), this remark "Auf dieser Art mit St. geht alles zu Grunde" makes sense.



It all fits, more and better than the Antonie hypothesis (which I still don't find unconvincing).

I have to say I have always found the Antonie Brentano hypothesis unconvincing for several reasons. However there are still problems with the Josephine theory -
1)Beethoven referred in a letter of 1816 to having met the love of his life five years previously in 1811 - he met Josephine in 1799.
2)It would have been impossible for Beethoven to be discussing marriage or living with her, as divorce was most unlikely to have been granted.
3)Would Beethoven knowing his daughter to be Minona have made no provision for her in his will?
4)Why is there no evidence of further correspondence or meeting between the two, especially after the Stackelberg separation? Even had the affair finished, it couldn't have been so bitter that they had nothing to do with each other after so many years of intimate association.
5)There is no evidence of a great reaction from Beethoven to her death in 1821.

[Roehre]

Thanks for that summary and very interesting detail. As the primary sources don't change - except when some new ones comes to light - all this can only be speculative, of course. Rather like looking into the eyes of a bird and trying to figure out, from that information alone, a bird's total physical appearance.

The primary sources haven't changed: more has come to lights following the process of cataloguing and making available to a wider public of parts of the Deym/Stackelberg archives in the Czech Republic.

That changes the picture in terms of available primary sources considerably.

[Bonn1827]

Thanks for that summary and very interesting detail. As the primary sources don't change - except when some new ones comes to light - all this can only be speculative, of course. Rather like looking into the eyes of a bird and trying to figure out, from that information alone, a bird's total physical appearance.

[Preston]

interesting- quite. really unbelievable, if true. so, thanks Roehre.

[Roehre]

Obviously this isn't available in translation, and my fledgling German won't help me! Any chance, therefore, of a condensed appraisal of the general thesis from you?

this publication is in English .

Short:
The Deym/Stackleberg archives are being ordered and made public.
Diary fragments of Josephine have resurfaced;
recollections of Josephine's eldest son ditto, both clearifying some dubious or questionable entries in Therese Brunsvik's published recollections from the 1840s.

Putting next to each other the places where B and J stayed in the beginning of July 1812 these fit brilliantly; both mention that something had happened causing the necessity to change some previously made plans.

The early July 1812 diary pages of J's are written with pencil, contrary to the fast majority of the other surviving pages - Beethoven refers to a pencil in the letter to the IB (yours...).

J was exceptionally fertile (there was an illegimitate child already e.g.). In the one night stand with B (in Prague) Minona was conceived.
She was born April 8th 1813. B knew she was. There is a cryptic remark in a letter of his dated April 8th 1813. There is a hint to her in the first conversation booklet as well.
The similarities between Beethoven's portraits and the photos made of Minona are striking (though she wasn't as musical as sometimes is said).

B started the procedures to get custodianship over Karl April 12th 1813, before it was needed (his brother was ill, but the end was far from near), again cryptically mentioning he was (a kind of) father too.

The "A" in Beethoven's diary can easily be interpreted as such as a misreading /misinterpretation for St., which in B's handwriting is nearly identical, but hardly appears in his letters. Steblin documents this beyond any doubt. The diary only has survived in the form of two copies in other people's handwriting. A misreading is easily made, and other misreadings are documented.
St then is to be interpreted as Stackelberg.

As he and Josephine after J's faux pas were cuddling up (avoiding a scandal, of which neither B, nor J nor Stackelberg would have escaped unscathed), this remark "Auf dieser Art mit St. geht alles zu Grunde" makes sense.



It all fits, more and better than the Antonie hypothesis (which I still don't find unconvincing).

[Bonn1827]

Obviously this isn't available in translation, and my fledgling German won't help me! Any chance, therefore, of a condensed appraisal of the general thesis from you?

[Roehre]

It is not impossible, and the surviving photographs showing this lady in old age do have a striking resemblance with Beethoven's portraits.

I think newly published primary sources from the Deym/Brunsvik archives make it likely (perhaps even more than likely) that Minona is Beethoven's daughter.

See Rita STEBLIN, "Auf dieser Art mit A geht alles zu Grunde". A new look at Beethoven's Diary Entry and the "Immortal Beloved", in: Bonner Beethoven Studien 6, (Beethoven Haus Bonn/Carus Verlag, 2007), pp. 147-180.

IMO a must for people interested in this question.

[Preston]

I'll watch a few episodes of CSI: Miami and report back.

Any luck?

[Chris]

Chris, are you sure? If Beethoven's DNA cannot be discovered, then, I am glad. I do not want these cloners (Kamino)* to try and create a new Beethoven.

I'm sure about the hair, but I don't know if they haven't gotten it or could not get it from some other source. I'll watch a few episodes of CSI: Miami and report back.

*Chris, did you catch the joke?

Well, Attack of the Clones is quite the joke.

[Michael]

I just wanted to highlight this quote. Because I agree.

You agree? With something I posted?
I feel quite faint. Excuse me while I get a glass of water ..........

[Michael]

Hello handsome. That leer is not a smile, as you say. Maybe it was just a bad painter?

In fairness to Johann, he doesn't appear to have insisted on a flattering image. A lot of his famous brother's portraits seem to have been a bit prettified, especially the iconic Stieler in which he looks a little like an ageing matinee idol.